Last week was half term and Jojo wanted to have a go in the forge at making a woodcarving knife for herself. I was busy turning but able to pop across and give advice from time to time but she pretty much just got on with it. In the forge The first rough forged knife, she made 3 Rough grinding…
Whilst we went to Chopwell Woods to teach spooncarving we also learnt some bushcraft tricks. My favourite was learning to make fire with flint and steel, Eric Methven taught me and Ollie and Jojo too then gave us a flint and steel each to practice at home. Here is Ollie blowing his ember into life. And Jojo. This really is…
The children are off school now and work and childcare have to be juggled over the next few weeks. One day this week Ollie and I spent the morning at the forge, he is very skilled at carving with a knife so I thought I would let him make his own knife. We started with an old car spring, heated…
Well I had partial success and partial failure with my new turning hooks. I have used them heavily for several days now and 3 have broken, the tips have snapped off. Close inspection showed the grain structure was fine so there are three things I can work on for the next batch. Make the whole tool a little softer by…
Last weekend I went to Kent on an intensive bladesmithing course with master smith Owen Bush. I have been forging my own woodturning tools for 15 years but everything I do has been learned by trial and error and I wanted to see if I could improve the quality of my tools so that they stay sharper for longer. It…
